


Welcome Home [Blue]

by shirozora



Series: 7: The Colors of the Rainbow [5]
Category: Pundit RPF (US)
Genre: 7: The Colors of the Rainbow series, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-20
Updated: 2010-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirozora/pseuds/shirozora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven colors, seven themes, seven expressions of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome Home [Blue]

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
> 
> I hijacked a few prompts from an enormous list of various prompts and themes I found throughout LiveJournal. Sorry for not following the rules of the communities that originally provided them.

He remembered comparing himself to a shark. The deadly yet graceful predator never stops swimming because it would suffocate if it didn't keep the water flowing through its gills. That was how he saw himself – always moving from place to place, never stopping, never pausing, never letting it catch up to him.

He would _never_ let it catch up to him.

They were awestruck as he was pulled out of the vehicle. How could he have survived without a bulletproof vest? He couldn't say, wouldn't. The sergeant across from him was about to give his name when the vehicle was hit, the sergeant suddenly his shield. He clutched the handheld to him as units converged on the scene, shouting orders, firing at the unseen assailants. As they carefully lifted him into the chopper he asked after his camera crew.

First on the ride back to the base, and then on the plane homeward bound he watched the video, numbly wondering if there was anything worth using.

He was whisked out of the airport and taken straight home. They told him to take some time off and regroup, warned him of the sudden publicity. It was Katrina all over again, he said quietly. Popularity at a price. He'd been asked before how it felt to benefit from the suffering of others. It was not funny now.

Mother asked what he wanted. "Not now," he said, and she backed off.

The nightmares would not go away and he did himself no favors by watching the footage in a twisted loop while he wandered around the townhouse, lingering on the seconds after the impact and the sudden fear that took hold of him when he found he couldn't move. They told him the sergeant's body saved him from the crushing weight of the Humvee but in the first frantic acrid smoke-filled minutes he couldn't tell, couldn't care less. He was stuck in one place and he was suffocating.

He hesitated as he glanced up at the camera. Five minutes passed before he took a deep breath and began talking about the firefight.

They all wanted to talk to him. He politely declined; they persisted. He didn't want to revisit it; they all wanted him to recount his brush with death in the war zone. How could they ask him to talk about the sudden loss of his camera crew, the tears and screams of the sergeant's mother as she cursed him out of the family's apartment, the silent glare of the locals as they watched the soldiers whisk him out of the battle right next to their village?

He could feel it in the back of his mind, waiting for him to make a slip and fall into the darkness.

They told him to take more time off. The comments in his show's blog were more than a little disturbing; they all expressed fear for his health and a few begged him to find help. How many of them read his book, how many of them knew his life story? How many of them saw through the mask he thought he had affixed on his face before glancing at the camera every night?

Mother asked him what he wanted. "Away. I need to get away," to Africa.

He didn't understand. What happened? He was no stranger to death and decay, to negligence and abuse, to the horrors of a world gone to hell. Had he become too complacent, too comfortable with a life behind the desk? Had he forgotten what it meant to be a journalist with a purpose, a globetrotting reporter hurtling himself into danger without care? He missed the former anonymity, could no longer stand being stopped constantly by the curious and the nosy while on the street just blocks from his house. _I need a break. A hiatus. I need time off._ He didn't believe in them, would rather be working than lollygagging, but his tickets were purchased, a suitcase packed, and a whole night to decide how he was going to spend his time far from home and all its trappings.

But what if Africa wasn't what he was looking for?

It was two in the morning of his flight and he had walked across town to a series of apartments. Jon had given him the address and the instructions, had asked after him as a concerned colleague and worried friend. He was fine, he just wanted to talk to someone. Jon never asked, only saying, "Okay. Here's the cross streets, here's the number, and here's how to get there."

It was cold; he could see his breath, his feet were too numb, and he forgot his jacket. Mad man, absolutely mad.

Shocking his lungs with chilly air, he stepped forward and pressed the button next to the number on the intercom, wondering if this was a mistake. Nine tries later he wasn't even in the right state of mind to ask why he kept pressing the little button. This wasn't happening; it was not catching up to him; he was not falling apart over _this_, right _here_, right _now_-

Static. "…whoozzit?"

He blinked once, then rapidly. Forcing his breath out of his lungs, he leaned in, eyes darting up and down the street, and said, shakily, "…it's me."

He knocked on a door in a narrow hallway, kept rubbing his cold nose. His eyes darted up and down the hall but there was no number reminding him which floor he was on. He took the stairs, didn't check if this complex had an elevator. He stared at the worn carpeting on the floor, rocked back and forth on his feet. Waiting, just waiting, don't want to be here, why here-

Light streamed into the hall from underneath the door and the floor creaked as someone approached the door. His heart started pounding as the locks were undone and he began wondering if this was a really bad idea. Indecision. He hated it, being torn in all directions, unable to decide for himself, defenseless. A lifetime forging his own way, and like they said a brush with death derailed the plan.

The doorknob turned, and the door swung inward. He looked up.

Stephen stared at him blankly, startled out of sleep, hair sticking up in all directions, glasses balancing precariously on his nose. His hand twitched, wanting to adjust them.

Stephen blinked several times. "…Anderson? It's almost…are you-you don't look…"

Bad idea. Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. He should've gone straight to the airport, waited until they called his flight. He was not thinking right, hadn't been thinking right. Maybe he _should_ go see someone about that day on the dusty road by the desolate village. That day when everything came crashing to a smoke-filled standstill. "I…I should go-"

"Anderson." Stephen shouldered the door aside, leaned on the doorframe. "Anderson, do you…do you want to talk about it?"

He hesitated.

_Yes._

But he couldn't say it. He doesn't say it, doesn't vocalize it. Coping meant briefly glancing at the past while moving onward, never stopping, never resting, but even a scheduled flight across the Atlantic couldn't hide that he hadn't run past this, that he hadn't moved beyond this, that he was _suffocating_.

_Why didn't this happen when Carter…_

He glanced up at Stephen, and then his eyes darted down the hall to the stairs. That was all Stephen seemed to need, because he stepped out into the hallway and wrapped his arms around Anderson's wilted body. He didn't respond at first, but then he was wrapping his arms around Stephen, burying his face in the crook of his neck, taking shuddering breaths as he finally gave up trying to hold himself together.

"Come inside," Stephen whispered. Anderson shuddered as lips brushed over his ear, and then Stephen slipped away, back into his apartment.

The light streaming out into the hall beckoned. He wanted so badly to touch it, hope that it'll do for him what years of catharsis couldn't. His hand twitched again, moved towards it, but he stopped, reflexively looked over his shoulder at the stairwell door again. The road to Africa. To lose himself in it, and shed it all.

He doubted it'll change anything.

Keep moving forward. Don't stop. Hurtle yourself into it. Don't look back. It'll kill you.

Enough.

Why was he here? Why did he call Jon, ask for the address and the number? Why did he walk all those blocks from his townhouse on the eve of his flight? To do what? What for? What was he looking for?

Once, Mother told him, "Follow your bliss."

The door was still open and Stephen was still waiting.

Anderson stepped forward. His heart was racing again, his breath short, a nervous wreck. But he felt it, the breakaway, motion, water flowing through his gills. Momentum. He was moving in a new direction, towards a place he never gave a thought about before, but found himself wanting.

There was a time and a place to want and need to feel safe.

He walked into the apartment, quietly closing the door behind him.

 

For the record he missed his flight.


End file.
